


The Dead And Their Unexpected Friends

by blythechild



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Car Accidents, Discovery, Fake Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Immortality, Revelations, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3117791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry meets a speeding car in front of Jo and the results are not good.</p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains brief violence and shouldn't be read by those under the age of 14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dead And Their Unexpected Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a response to a challenge in the picfor1000 community on Livejournal. It was [based on this photo prompt](https://www.flickr.com/photos/77681716@N03/7117588061/in/photostream/lightbox/).

They were both foolishly looking into the street and ignoring the alley behind them when it happened. Manhattan can be so loud; one gets easily distracted. Fortunately, he’d never become completely inured to cars and as such, he found that he had _just_ enough time to push her away. She stumbled on the sidewalk, gun drawn, expression of pique quickly turning to horror as his tibias buckled against the suspect’s bumper. He’d been run over by a myriad of vehicles in his time, and had come to dread it. There was no more insight to be gained from further research: it was just excruciatingly painful. But this time, worse than the pain of shattered legs, exploding internal organs, and probable decapitation once he hit the windshield, was the knowledge that he couldn’t avoid Detective Martinez witnessing him blink out of existence before her very eyes.

“HENRY!” she screamed uselessly.

He had a second to think about how he wished he’d let her in a little more before the crunch of metal and glass turned everything black.

\----

The East River was freezing this time of year. He broke the surface with a gasp that was part pain, part oxygenation, and part exasperation at the local climate. Luckily, he’d shown up there so often that he’d taken to stashing supplies at spots along the shoreline; there were only so many excuses one could use to avoid indecent exposure charges, even in this city. He wrapped himself in something Abe called a ‘track suit’ deciding what it lacked in style, it more than made up for in warmth. Then it wasn’t so hard to walk the two miles to the nearest payphone.

“East River. The usual spot,” he said when Abe picked up.

“Okay, Dad, hold on. I’m coming.”

Abe sounded worried, and he almost never called him Dad anymore. A seventy-year-old man couldn’t call a forty-year-old ‘Dad’ without raising questions about dementia, so Henry learned to live without hearing the title that he’d earned and loved so much. To Henry’s recollection, Abe hadn’t called him Dad since the time he’d been buried alive in New Jersey. It took him four days to die and Abe had gotten a little frantic in the interim. 

It was dark before Abe drove up, headlights illuminating the gloomy pier. Before the car stopped, the back door opened, and Abe’s behavior became clear as Jo Martinez stepped out.

“You’re alive! I didn’t believe Abe when he told me… how are you ALIVE?”

Abe emerged, looking sheepish.

“Abraham…” Henry growled.

“Don’t start,” Abe scolded. “Jo told me you were dead _and_ that you disappeared. She asked me what I knew, and, you know… she did it in that way of hers. She has a way… What was I supposed to say?”

“So you _told_ her?!?”

“Yeah,” Jo stepped up cocking a hand on her hip. “He told me you were his Dad and that you’re nearly three hundred years old and that you can’t die. I was ready to run him over to Bellevue on the spot when you called.”

“This is a disaster. Everyone into the car this instant. I refuse to discuss this out in the open.”

Jo huffed and Abe pouted but they did as they were told. When Abe was successfully on the road again, Henry turned on Jo.

“You have to forget this, forget me, Detective. It’s vitally important that you do so.”

“Forget the City has an undead medical examiner? You’re joking.”

“I’m not ‘undead’. I die - rather frequently. I just don’t stay dead.”

“Yes,” Jo glared. “Hence the term ‘undead’.”

They stared each other down.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Henry? I thought… I thought we were friends.”

“How could I tell you that I’ve had more chances than I’m owed when your husband died senselessly and before his time?”

Jo’s breath caught and Henry saw Abe’s eyes flick in the rearview mirror. Henry took Jo’s hand in his.

“It’s not fair, and I didn’t want to break open that grief anew. We _are_ friends, Jo, which is why you must forget me. This secret endangers you.”

Her eyes sharpened. “What do you mean?”

“There is another,” Henry sighed. “Like me. But he is far older and I fear that millennia spent standing outside humanity has, well, made him less than human.”

“Who is he? Has he threatened you?”

“I don’t know him or what he looks like. He enjoys… _playing_ with me. I think he sees us as immortal companions but his moral deficit appalls me. Threats are pointless but he will use those I care about. If he knows you know, he’ll use you however he sees fit to get to me.”

“Well, let’s get him first.”

“Detective,” Henry pinched his nose. “What would you charge him with? How would the sentencing go in the laughable event that he was ever convicted for a crime? He can’t die and he has no rules.”

Jo made a dismissive noise. “You give up too easily, Doctor. This guy is tormenting my friend - there’s no way that I’m giving up on this now.”

“See?” Abe piped in. “She has a way about her. I like that - it balances out your pessimism nicely.”

“Of course you like it. You’re both equally reckless…” Henry muttered.

Jo arched an eyebrow before turning forward. “So, where do we start?”

“Home,” Abe said. “With homemade chicken soup for the chill, and a bottle of burgundy for the balls.”

“Abe!” Henry sat up, indignant.

“What? We’re gonna need cajones to pull this off. The Detective is way out in front with that. Am I right?”

“You’re sweet, Abe.” Jo winked at him and then turned back to Henry. “Surrounded by death all day, and now I find myself partnered up with a guy who defies it… I think you’re my fate, Henry Morgan.”

He sank back in wonder at how a man out of time could accidentally collect the friendship of so many good people.


End file.
